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Jerry glances back at her, a slight smirk on her lips as she flicks her cigarette out the window.
I wish she wouldn’t smoke in the car with me. We’ve had this conversation before. But there’s no controlling her. If you ask her not to do something, she’ll just do it more.
I stopped asking.
“There’s some things we have to ask you,” I start finally.
Sydney’s head whips my way, her eyes narrowed. Fury radiates off her shoulders in waves; her hands balled into fists in her lap. “I’m not answering a single thing.”
Jerry clicks her tongue from the front. “I’m not sure that’s going to go over too well for you, Syd.”
Sydney’s eyebrows draw together in befuddlement, her shoulders hunching just slightly. I can see the dozens of questions in her eyes, but there’s not much I can say here. There’s not much I can say in general. She’s just going to have to deal with that and trust us.
Which would be a whole lot easier if I had more time with her.
“What is this?” she asks me, her eyes pleading as they grow larger and larger, glistening in the late morning light.
I shake my head. “We’ll be able to tell you a little more when we reach our destination.”
Her hands start to shake, her fingers reaching for the door handle as her body whips around. She throws herself against it, hoping it’ll open.
Jerry’s eyes meet mine as she looks back, and I know she wants me to handle it.
Gripping Sydney’s body, I bring her back into her seat, holding her down as she thrashes. But I don’t hold her tightly enough.
A searing pain starts in my cheek as her palm connects with it, her eyes staring daggers at me.
“Don’t. Touch. Me,” she hisses, the palm of her hand held in her other as she massages her red skin.
“I wouldn’t have to touch you if you wouldn’t try to escape a moving vehicle,” I inform her, annoyance clear in my tone. “What were you trying to do, anyway? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
She looks around, surprise on her face as if she thought we were still in the city.
Instead, all she can see is the blur of trees as we pass them, a neighborhood off to the left.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“You’re lucky we’re not blindfolding you,” Jerry snarks as she reaches for her phone. She has one leg propped up on the seat, her knee resting against the door, her left hand gripping the wheel as she texts the others.
The car drifts into the opposite lane, and I have to snap at her to get her attention back where it’s supposed to be. Jerry isn’t exactly known for being a safe driver.
Meanwhile, Sydney has stopped shaking, but her head whips around, trying to figure out where we are.
“We’re about ten minutes west from DC,” I tell her. “We have about ten more minutes to go.”
“Where are you taking me?” Her eyes land on mine, and I can’t help but feel a little pang in my chest as I see they’re filled with tears.
“We’re taking you to our place. You’re going to be fine.”
The rest of the ride is silent. The soft beat of whatever music Jerry plays thrums through the speakers as I anxiously tap my fingers on my jittery leg. I just want to be home, where we can get this over with and get this girl back to her place and away from us.
Not that I think that she would do any better there.
Even if we get all the information we need from her, she will still have problems at home. She’s still going to have people after her. If she’s lucky, it’ll only be the FBI. The Agency wants nothing to do with her; they don’t even know we’re talking to her if I’m being honest. But the criminal enterprise her parents established, well, that’s another story.
I’m not sure what anyone would get out of catching her attention. If anything, I think it would go poorly for them. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t take her out, just to make sure their lives are easier down the road.
For good reason, Sydney Quinn would have a high price on her head.
